When is a selfie a selfie? And when does it become act of war? Over at mamamia.com, Bec Sparrow has the answer. When the selfie is of six-packing fitness-blogging Norwegian Caroline Berg Eriksen posing in tiny underwear four days after…
Over the last few evenings, I inhaled Robert Harris‘ novelisation of France’s infamous Dreyfus affair. Told from the point of view of Colonel Georges Picquart, the intelligence officer whose scrupulous honesty finally established Dreyfus’ innocence, An Officer and a Spy…
Are you a feminist? It’s a question I ask of my third-year Animal Behaviour class every year. I ask the question in a lecture, near the end of the course, about human sexuality. It’s a part of the lecture where…
Hasn’t Malcolm Gladwell had a busy fortnight? His latest book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, shipped on the first of October. And the deluge of reviews washed out a flood of anti-Gladwell bile. He’s…
Why do religious beliefs vary so broadly? I’m not talking here about the near-cosmic diversity in the content of religious belief, number and identity of deities, or types of practice. Rather, I’d like to consider why some individuals seem fervently…
It’s been three weeks, I am told. Time to list a few of my favourite recent reads. By far my favourite read of the last few weeks is David Graeber’s piece about “Bullshit Nonsense Jobs“. Yes, all you generation Xers…
Dads are important. Pardon the motherhood statement about … fatherhood. Just sometimes, even self-evident things need to be said. All else being equal, fathers who are involved in their children’s upbringing directly improve those children’s survival, health, social and educational…
Like most academics and several other Conversation authors, I imagine, I’m irritated at the Coalition’s recently stated intention to micro-manage ARC Granting outcomes. Irritated, but in no way surprised. Have The Coalition strategists been reading up on the tactical genius…
All good books are different but all bad books are exactly the same. All these bad books have one thing in common: they don’t ring true. (Robert Harris: The Ghost) The same can be said, probably more so, for pop…
My research group are always looking for subjects for our internet-based studies in which we measure how certain traits enhance or detract from an individual’s attractiveness. And we worry, like other researchers in the field, about whether these measured preferences…